Three reasons for — and three against — the Panthers’ chances to repeat as Stanley Cup champions
The Florida Panthers’ quest to repeat as Stanley Cup champions begins Tuesday when they travel to face the Tampa Bay Lightning at Amerant Bank Arena to begin their best-of-7 first-round matchup.
The Panthers are trying to become just the ninth team in NHL history to ever win back-to-back Stanley Cups.
And while Florida has plenty of factors playing in its favor to potentially get that second consecutive title, there are some things to consider as they attempt to go on yet another deep playoff run.
Here are three reasons for — and three against — the Panthers’ chances to successfully pull off a repeat bid.
Why the Panthers could win another Stanley Cup
1). Their forward depth is perhaps even better than it was last season.
At full strength, the Panthers have 15 forwards who could legitimately have a case for their 12 spots in the lineup.
It starts with the top line with captain Aleksander Barkov centering Carter Verhaeghe and Sam Reinhart. Barkov and Reinhart are two of the league’s best two-way forwards, and while Verhaeghe has had a rough regular season in 2024-25, he has been one of the NHL’s most clutch players in the playoffs the past few years.
A second line of Sam Bennett centering rookie Mackie Samoskevich and (once he’s cleared to play) Matthew Tkachuk provides physicality, tenacity and shooting threats.
Then it’s Anton Lundell with Eetu Luostarinen and Brad Marchand on his wings to make up Florida’s third line. Lundell and Luostarinen the past two playoffs has often best tested with going up against an opponent’s top forward line and they have successfully held their own. Now, they add a veteran to their line in Marchand, who played in 157 career playoff games with the Boston Bruins before being dealt to the Panthers at the March trade deadline.
As for Florida’s fourth line, coach Paul Maurice has options. Three of Nico Sturm, Evan Rodrigues, A.J. Greer, Jonah Gadjovich, Jesper Boqvist and Tomas Nosek will make up that final grouping. Maurice will likely play matchups when determining that line on a night-to-night basis.
2). Their style of play is built for postseason hockey.
The Panthers play a defense-first, forecheck-heavy style that suffocates opponents and suppresses scoring chances. That’s the key to winning in the postseason.
It’s a style that has been ingrained in the team during Maurice’s three seasons leading the Panthers and one they build as the season progresses.
During the regular season, Florida controlled 55.51% of shot attempts at 5-on-5, the second-best mark in the league behind only the Carolina Hurricanes (59.15). They gave up just 139 goals when the game was played at full strength, which was fourth best in the league behind only the Winnipeg Jets (119), Los Angeles Kings (125) and Toronto Maple Leafs (136).
3). They have a veteran goaltender who is playoff tested.
Sergei Bobrovsky was a major X factor for the Panthers in each of their runs to the Stanley Cup Final the past two years.
In 43 games (42 starts), Bobrovsky posted a .911 save percentage. He held opponents to two goals or fewer in 25 of those 42 starts, including three shutout wins.
They will most likely need more clutch performances from “Playoff Bob” this year to have another long postseason run.
Why the Panthers might miss the mark
1). Making three consecutive Stanley Cup Finals is no easy feat.
Making one trip to a Stanley Cup Final is taxing enough. It’s an 82-game regular season schedule followed by at minimum 16 games and at most 28 to get through all four rounds of the playoffs. Doing it twice in the row, like the Panthers did the past two seasons, is brutal.
Making it three times in a row?
The last team to make three consecutive Finals was the Lightning, doing so in 2020, 2021 and 2022 — with wins in 2020 and 2021. However, there’s a caveat to that. Tampa Bay’s first two Cup Final runs in that stretch came in abbreviated seasons. The 2019-2020 regular-season campaign being halted in mid-March due to the COVID-19 pandemic before the postseason was held in a bubble in Toronto and Edmonton. The 2020-21 season was just 56 games — about 70% of the length of the usual 82-game regular-season slate.
The last team before Tampa Bay to make it to three consecutive Finals? The Edmonton Oilers from 1983 to 1985 — 40 years ago.
2). Just how healthy is the team?
It’s fair to wonder just how close to full strength this Panthers team really is.
Tkachuk hasn’t played since mid-February due to an apparent groin injury sustained during the 4 Nations Face-Off. While the anticipation is he’ll be ready for the Lightning series — perhaps as early as Game 1 — how much rust will there be considering he hasn’t played in more than two months?
Beyond Tkachuk, Bennett missed a few games late in the season with an upper-body injury. Defenseman Dmitry Kulikov returned for the final two games of the regular season after missing a month with an upper-body injury. And while not injury related, Florida will be without top-pairing defenseman Aaron Ekblad for the first two games against Tampa Bay while he finishes serving his 20-game suspension.
The grind of making runs to the Stanley Cup Final each of the past two years can wear on a team — Florida has played 291 games during the past three seasons entering Game 1 on Tuesday. Will they have enough gas in the tank to do it a third time?
3). They potentially could go the whole playoffs without home-ice advantage.
The Panthers are the No. 3 seed in the Atlantic Division and as such will open the first round on the road. In fact, there are only three teams in the Eastern Conference against whom Florida would have any chance of having home-ice advantage: the Ottawa Senators in the second round (if they upset the Atlantic Division champions in Round 1) and Montreal Canadiens or New Jersey Devils in the Eastern Conference final if the Washington Capitals and Carolina Hurricanes get eliminated in the first two rounds.
Should Florida advance to its third consecutive Stanley Cup Final, the only teams it would get home ice against to start the series would be the Western Conference’s two wild card teams in the Minnesota Wild and St. Louis Blues.
While Florida has been a good road playoff team the past two years — going 15-8 overall — that would be a lot of travel in their quest to repeat.
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